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Community Health Centre

A community needs assessment has been completed to examine the population health needs of the residents of Pictou County and plans for the development of a Community Health Centre (CHC) are well underway, thanks to the support and stewardship of the Aberdeen Health Foundation. The CHC will operate with a focus on serving people without a primary care provider in Pictou County, providing patient navigation and post-referral follow-up to appropriate programs and services geared toward health promotion and prevention. Through this work, the CHC will broaden access to primary health care in the community and help address the social determinants of health through an equity lens.

Mental Wellness Roundtable

The Aberdeen Health Foundation has been a key funder of the Mental Wellness Roundtable, a coalition of frontline agencies and mental health professionals dedicated to improving awareness and access to mental health resources in our community. The Pictou County Mental Wellness and Resilience Toolkit and Resource Guide was developed by the Roundtable to fill a gap they had identified. The toolkit contains information designed to promote a better understanding of mental health, lessons for creating mentally safer environments and workplaces, and best practices for supporting someone through a mental health concern or crisis. It also includes information on a wide range of resources the public can access for mental health care. Access the Toolkit and Resource Guide online here.

Mental Health

Families Overcoming Risks and Building Opportunities for Wellbeing (FORBOW) is a mental illness prevention and early intervention program operating within Dalhousie University, with a satellite location now available in New Glasgow thanks to funding from the Aberdeen Health Foundation. The program has been led by Principal Investigator Dr. Rudolf Uher for the past decade. Dr. Uher has consistently been named one of the top cited researchers in the world, demonstrating the significant impact his work has in the field of mental health, with particular attention on serious forms of mental illness with a heritable component. The results of the study so far have been profound, with early intervention showing prevention of the onset of mental illness may be possible in over half of the cases. Visit FORBOW.org for more.

Innovation

The Foundation serves as a partner and resource for medical staff by providing financial funding in support of health care innovation. When general surgeon Dr. Chakshu Sharma approached the Foundation regarding a new technology that she had been following for the treatment of breast cancer patients, the Foundation was able to provide the funding required to bring this innovative new treatment to Nova Scotia. After successful pilot programs at the Aberdeen Hospital and in the Central zone, the MOLLI seed localization technology became the new standard of care for breast cancer patients in our region, and other health care zones quickly followed suit. Read more about Dr. Sharma and the MOLLI seed localization technology here.

Personal Empowerment Program (PEP)

Pictou County has among the highest rates of chronic disease in Canada. Data shows that our population is not benefiting from the resources currently available, that’s why the Foundation has invested to bring a new programming approach here. Pictou County PEP is an evidence-based, comprehensive program to support individuals to adopt new healthy habits for sustainable change. Led by Halifax-based research scientists and physicians, Dr. Gabriela Ilie and Dr. Rob Rutledge, PEP (standing for Personal Empowerment Program) is designed to improve the long-term mental and physical health of participants through daily emails and instructional videos on a wide range of health promoting topics, and opportunity for peer networking and support. Visit PictouCountyPEP.org for more.

Health Equity

In 2013, the Aberdeen Health Foundation announced a new endowment fund to support projects that protect children, promote healthy child development, and create legacy projects to commemorate the former Children’s Aid Society (CAS) of Pictou County. The goal of the CAS Endowment is to fund projects that prevent crisis in the home, school or community, enhancing the potential for healthy outcomes for children.

Through the CAS Endowment, Aberdeen Health Foundation offers Health Equity Grants to key community organizations aligned with the project’s mandate to provide children’s health promotion and crisis intervention in the community. These frontline agencies are key partners in the Aberdeen Health Foundation’s vision of a Pictou County where everyone can achieve their best health. They are uniquely positioned to identify cracks in our social infrastructure and leverage the available resources to provide immediate and specific help to those in need.

Through these grants, the agencies are given latitude to respond to emergent needs within the parameters of health equity. These funds enable these nimble agencies to serve their clients immediately, without judgement; helping them build and sustain trusting relationships with the families they serve.